CONUNDRUM

When Marin Luther had problems with certain books of the New Testament which appeared to contradict the new theology he was developing, he tried to have those particular books removed from the Lutheran version of the Bible.  Wikipedia explains it this way:

“Luther made an attempt to remove the books of Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation from the canon (notably, he perceived them to go against certain Protestant doctrines such as sola gratia and sola fide), but this was not generally accepted among his followers. However, these books are ordered last in the German-language Luther Bible to this day.

"If Luther's negative view of these books were based only upon the fact that their canonicity was disputed in early times, 2 Peter might have been included among them, because this epistle was doubted more than any other in ancient times.  However, the prefaces that Luther affixed to these four books makes it evident ‘that his low view of them was more due to his theological reservations than with any historical investigation of the canon’".  Read more here.

Failing to have the Epistle of James removed, he dubbed it the epistle of straw and invited followers to largely ignore it.  This may seem startling to us today, but it still takes place even within the Catholic Church.  Perhaps not with Scripture but we have our own versions of it.

An excellent example would be the documents of Vatican II.  There are certain ideas about Vatican II, which are very popular and almost ingrained into American Catholic society, that don’t quite stand up to all that VII said.  Readers of the documents are invited to skip over the parts that do not agree with this vision and are told they are in violation of VII documents if they, in fact, are trying to do as the actual documents state.

Here is an example that I told you about some time back.  A friend of mine was having dinner in a restaurant and having just come from a VII workshop, happened to have the documents sitting on the table.  A man came by and invited him to come to his church where they were truly putting the documents into action.  When asked which church this was, the man identified a community that had just broke from the diocese and the bishop and was operating as an independent entity. 

Confused, my friend asked how they could consider themselves more closely following VII documents when so much of them were about being in concert with the local bishop and the pope.  “That’s not in there!” replied the man.  Not only is it in there, but it is a major section of one of the constitutions of the Church.  The man had to admit that they disagreed that part of the document.  A document of straw.

Recently we were going to sing the Gloria in Latin for a short time.  My music minister received a certain amount of flack.  The worst came from persons accusing the parish of betraying VII (which in my estimation is one step short of accusing the parish of schism.)  Pointing out that the constitution of the Church not only states that Latin is the official language of the Church and that it is to preserved, but that every person should know their parts of the Mass in Latin and that steps should be taken in order for this to occur, had no sway. 

Now, if someone were to say they simply didn’t like this idea, I could respect that.  If they said that they, in fact, did not agree with VII documents, I would understand.  But if we cannot assume that all of the writing are guided by the Holy Spirit, no matter how contested they may have been at the time, how can we trust any of the writings of VII?  If we cannot trust the New Testament because certain parts of it might mislead us, how can we trust any of the New Testament?  Are we that lost?

I think not.

IT'S A BIG, BIG HOUSE. SORT OF

We have a relatively new music ministry in the parish that is made up of mostly high school folk that sing worship and praise music. Before going to Steubenville for a youth conference they gathered on the front steps of the church and ran over their music. (This gave me the idea that we need a summer lawn and picnic concert series here next year.) The music that they do is very contemporary and I quite enjoy it. Thus far they have played during adoration when we have our confirmation meetings and a song or two during Mass a couple of times. One of the songs they like to do is “Big, Big House.” The words say something like, “ It’s a big, big house with lots and lots of rooms . . . it’s my Father’s house.” The Church is like a big, big house with the whole extended family living under one roof. And when you have so many people living under one roof, no matter how big the house is, some of the people under the roof will get on the nerves of other people under the roof. Such is our fallen nature.

Now it would be one thing if some of the people under the roof were doing things that were contrary to house rules. An extreme example would be one of them selling drugs to neighborhood kids. That is completely unacceptable. Something should be done. It is another thing, when, even following house rules, some people are bothered by other people. “George is reading again and I want him to come outside and play with me! Make his stop reading!” Well, George has a right to read and so we let him alone even as it drives someone else nuts. But we are family and so we do the best we can.

It is not much different in the actual life of the Church. It is true that there are things that are clearly off of the Catholic playing field. These can be in our corporate life, such as using beer instead of wine at Mass, or in our private life such as having a harem but wanting to declare yourself a good practicing Catholic. House rules are house rules.

But even when someone is clearly on the Catholic playing field, there can still be controversy. Liberal, at least in my understanding of the word, is a rare beast in the Church and is usually not found where one expects it. My understanding of the word when referring to persons in the Church is one who is open to everything that is valid in the Church. If the Church says, “Yes,” then the liberal says, “Sure. Why not? I will not be more restrictive in than the Church.” But many times those who freely take on the title liberal have a small set of Catholic practices or beliefs that are held onto passionately making them the mirror image of traditionalist that can have a similar small set of beliefs or practices and each turns their nose at the other.

The same thing could be said between countries. Very often those of us in the West can think we have a superior handle on what is right for the Church. If Rome doesn’t tag along we accuse them of lagging, not getting it, or being fuddy duddys. If the Church in Zimbabwe doesn’t agree with us we take our definition of freedom, justice, and modernity and think that of course they should accept what we hold dear because it is right and they should come to accept it even if they are not ready for it. Granted there are some things that are just same the world around. You can’t shoot someone for eating a carrot out of your yard. But sometimes people of different nations and cultures have different ideas of freedom, justice, and modernity and they are on Catholic field. They have different problems and goals to which they need to attend. The big, big, house then seems to get a little smaller as we try to even out the rules for a billion people instead of the few thousand in a parish.

It takes a lot of smiling, a lot of acceptance, a lot of welcoming, a lot of understanding, a lot of self sacrifice, a lot of learning, and a lot prayer and trust in Jesus’ promises and the power of the Holy Spirit for us all to get along and if single households can’t always do it without a lot of clanging into each other, so much more need to work at peaceful coexistence as the universal family of our Father.

MONDAY DIARY: UNIVERSAL VS UNIFORM

For some reason I cannot download pictures today. Sorry for the wordy format.

When I was still in my first assignment the diocese change the posture from kneeling to standing from after the Angus Dei until after everyone has received communion. I was mixed about the idea. On the one hand this gesture was so apart of the New Word experience of celebrating the Mass. The universal law is that people stand. Here in the States we knelt to emphasize the presence of Jesus as the Blessed Sacrament since we are so surrounded by Christians who do not recognize Him in this way. And so with this new posture a part of our unique culture has passed. On the other hand it made celebrating funerals and weddings much, much easier. Having to invite people to kneel again at this part of the Mass where non-Catholics were often in attendance invited some rolling of eyes, snickering, or those who simply refused. Not all, certainly not the majority, but enough to make it painful. And now we are more in line with what you will find in much of Europe.

Anyway, when it came time to implement the posture I asked the people to please try it for three weeks before making judgment on the change. It was, after all, a universal law for which we had permission to do differently in the first place, and it was within our ordinary’s right to ask us, in obedience, (never an easy thing for us Americans) to do.

I must say that the people were absolutely wonderful in giving it a shot for three weeks. Then after that a number of people returned to kneeling. John Paul II spoke on this and said that although standing is preferred, nobody should be denied the right to kneel “even for purely pious reasons.” So if anyone asked me about what posture they should take I would respond that the Universal Church and our bishop has asked us to stand and so I ask you to stand, but if you have a good reason to kneel the pope has extended his permission for you to do so. As a result most people stood and few people knelt. In my book that sounds great.

Not so in other people’s book however. A small but vocal group were angry at those who knelt and came to tell me to enforce the bishop’s call to stand. My response was that I could ask them but in the end it was not my right nor in my power to make them stand. The Church clearly gives them permission to kneel and it is not my role to restrict people further than the Church does.

A philosophy teacher of mine once talked about the need we have as people to worship with like minded people. Not only do we want to believe the same things there is often a tendency to want us all to pray the same way. I find that to be true. And why not? It makes sense and is much more comfortable than having someone next to you doing something different and wondering “what do they think of ME doing something different from them?”

As a new priest there were some types of Masses that I was very nervous about celebrating. The thought of some day celebrating a Charismatic Mass scared the bejeebers (sp?) out of me. Then a very wise priest told me that, “you don’t have to pray like everyone else, you just have to be able to pray with everyone else.” This permission opened a whole new world to me. I could then go to a Charismatic Mass and celebrate and you know what? It was always a wonderful experience with very appreciative people. So I try (with various levels of success) to be open to anything on the Catholic playing field.

Recently I allowed something new at my current parish that is squarely on the Catholic playing field but it is not without its controversy in some circles. I am more assured now than ever that I will never, ever wish to become bishop – never, ever, ever, in saecula saeculorum. If it is this difficult keeping a few thousand people happy in everything, I can’t imagine what it must be like to keep nearly a million people happy, or being pope and trying to lead a billion people is some fashion of unity! But you try to do what you think is right and keeping with the Church and the Gospel and trust God to do the rest and pray that everyone at least gets along on our journey to heaven.

Further apologies to you: I suppose today is not much of a diary day but the rambling thoughts of something on my mind!

SILENCE IS THE PERFECT HERALD OF JOY. I WERE BUT LITTLE HAPPY IF I COULD SAY HOW MUCH. - MUCH ADO

When Fr. Raymond Brown was challenged about some of his early works on Scripture he said not to judge him by those words, that they were written twenty years ago and he has evolved since then. Bear that in mind with what I am about to share with you. It is a though in process and I think I like it but have not thought it entirely through.

When I decided to offer myself to the priesthood there was a lengthy application process part of which was meeting with a veteran priest for an interview. This took place in the basement of a building on the campus of John Carol University. In a cramped office an older priest with mussed hair and wearing a sweater just a wee bit too tight around his expanding horizons asked me this question, “So (at the time) Mr. Valencheck, you want to serve God. Tell me about Him.”

Mind you I had an active relationship with God. I prayed daily, went to mass most days, discerned His action and calling in my daily life, had conversations with Him, believed in Him, was willing to go into full service to Him, but I had difficulty answering that question. Not, I believe, because I did not know Him, but because I knew Him in a way that is difficult to put into words. (I ask the same question of couples preparing for marriage now telling them that they will have smaller versions of themselves asking them, ‘Who is God,’ and that they need to develop a vocabulary to answer that question.)

Now I can tell you all kinds of things about God. He is a distinct mode of Being. “He is that about which nothing greater can be thought.” Trinity. Unity. Of divine simplicity yet three hypostases or persons – One is essence distinguished in persons by relation, and so forth and so on . . . But does knowing this lead me into a deeper relationship than the type of relationship that I had with Him before knowing these things? In some ways yes, but in many ways no.

In the pre-Vatican II mass there was a complaint that many people did not understand what was going on because it was said in Latin and the priest faced the same way as the people. But if they were thoroughly confused and absolutely lost why would any sane person go to mass? Why would anybody recommend it? SOMETHING must have been engaged. Perhaps it was a connection with the mystery that spoke in the depth of the heart: that which is exceedingly difficult to put into words but which is none-the-less there. It was a contact with that mystery that was perceivable though perhaps its inner mechanics was not.

But to this perceived alienation to the mass it was thought to make the mystery more accessible, a laudable thing to do. So the language was put into the vernacular, the priest turned to toward the people so that every action could be seen, and other innovations were sometimes added in an effort toward full disclosure such as using glass chalices so that people could see the wine turned blood.

Yet there was not the grand, “Aha!” moment in the Church. Granted, there are many factors for people seemingly understanding less about their faith and lack of die-hard adherents, but one might be led to think that if the meaning of the mass were indeed more apparent we would in turn be much more excited about it, understand it better, and be much more open to share it.

But perhaps we have over explained the unexplainable. We try too hard to show the un-showable. As a result instead of engaging the mass on a deeper level one might inclined to think, “I saw, I heard, I got it,” and fail to explore the mystery. Because of this I have always wished there was a way to have a hybrid mass that combined elements of both ways of celebrating the mass, but that won’t be and so it is not an answer to be much explored.

I am glad the older form or our mass is offered as I have always gained a tremendous amount from it. I’d like to think that way most people experience mass today could be celebrated in such a way that the mystery could be injected back in more suitably. While it was more difficult to pray the older mass rubrically, it is equally hard to pray the mass today with the same mystery. It requires silence, careful choices in music, delicacy in the way it is celebrated, and maybe (I believe more than maybe) at least some dabbling in Latin.

It probably can’t be done over night or exclusively. It takes a long time to be weaned off a sugary diet to something more substantial to the point where you like it. (I’m trying to do that with my coffee at the present.) But once you develop that taste you rarely want to go back.

CATHOLICS GOT GIRMS

A Quick Lesson in Liturgical Law:

Let us suppose that it is my birthday (it isn’t – not even close) and you want to take me out to dinner and tell me to choose my favorite place to eat in Cleveland. So I say to you my favorite restaurant is One Walnut, then Valerio’s, followed by the Lemon Grass. So you, in your kind-heartedness take me to the Lemon Grass as you prefer it. In fact, the next few times you take me out, you take me to the same place. Soon you are of a mind that this should be my favorite place because it is such a fine restaurant. In your estimation, it is everything that a restaurant should be. You tell others that, although I said I like One Walnut better, you know that I should be taken to the Lemon Grass. This is perfectly fine. I like the place a lot. But despite all your reasoning and I would prefer One Walnut.

Liturgical Law is not far from this. In the same way that no words are used without careful consideration, there is also no randomness in the order of things in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal. Things listed first are preferred.

For example: Notice the preferences for the opening “chant” (GIRM 48). The singing is done alternately by the choir and the people or (less desirably) by the cantor and the people (and less so) by the people alone, (and still less so) or the choir alone. All permissible; some preferred.

The music to be used is 1. The antiphon from the Roman Missal or Psalm from the Roman Gradual, 2. The seasonal antiphon from the Simple Gradual, 3. A song from another collection of psalms and antiphons approved by the Conference of Bishops, and finally 4. A suitable liturgical song approved by the Conference or local bishop.

So, instead of, Oh, let’s say, “Gather Us In” (in the Subject Index under I, Me, I, Me) with its lyrics, “Here in this place new light is streaming,” following the Rule of Firsts, this past Sunday at mass you would have sung (alternately along with the choir) the opening antiphon from the RM, “Remember your mercies, Lord, your tenderness from ages past. Do not let our enemies triumph over us; O God, deliver Israel from all her distress.” Interesting.

Example Two: (GIRM 160) “The consecrated host may be received either on the tongue or in the hand, at the discretion of the communicant.” While there is a clear preference for one, the decision is squarely in the hands (or tongue) of the one receiving, not the one distributing.

How to get around Liturgical Law:

Easy Method (recommended): Declare that the Spirit of Vatican II obviously intended for (insert your own personal cause here) to be preferred. Since this (spirit? Spirit?) (did not/was not able) to manifest itself, we take it upon ourselves now who are in touch with this (S/s)pirit to make this change and require others to do so also.

Advanced Method: Being an expert on the documents, it is easy to see that this part of the law was clearly a compromise document to appease those who (what? Are less faithful? Less influenced by the Holy Spirit? Are less Catholic? Less with it?) were causing trouble about what (the real Catholics?) wanted.

Yes, today I am blowing off a little steam. It seems some people are all about the Rule of Firsts unless it does not meet their desires. Either the Holy Spirit was present at VII or not, either the Rule of First works or it does not. This GIRM is either the legacy we have been given (at least for the time being) or it is not. Then we either invoke the Rule of First (and admit that we sometimes personally prefer or need the second, third, or fourth option) or just stop talking about it all together.

Now I need to go say mass and recite the introit, the least desirable option for the opening hymn.